‘2012’ trailer has earth-shattering week

Disaster pic's online views increase by 167%

Sony’s “2012” online trailer took on a tidal wave of viewer growth this week, while Summit’s “New Moon” and 20th Century Fox’s “Avatar” were brought back down to earth.

Disaster pic finished its run on the Visible Measures chart at No. 2 with a 167% increase to reach a final tally of over 9 million views. To put this figure into perspective, two previous box office hits — “Transformers” and “Harry Potter” — generated 5.9 and 7.3 million hits, respectively, in their last week before release.

With one week until release, the “Twilight” sequel dropped another 3% on top of its 25% slide from last week. Nonetheless, the pic remains at No. 1 on the chart with a robust 18.3 million views.

Also, James Cameron’s 3-D sci-fi epic fell almost 50% in views to remain at No. 3 with five weeks until its release.

Warner Bros.’ “Ninja Assassin” grew 17% to stay at No. 4 with more than 403,000 views, while Fox’s “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” moved up from sixth place to fifth with an impressive 53% jump in views. “Ninja” is two weeks from release; “Alvin” is six weeks away.

Both Lionsgate’s “Brothers” and Sony’s “Planet 51” made their debuts this week on the chart. With “Brothers” at three weeks until release and “Planet 51” at only one week, the lack of interest may not bode well for their potential box office.

Also of note: With Warner Bros.’ “Sherlock Holmes” returning to the chart at No. 10, that makes three Warners pics on the chart — the biggest representation out of any studio.

Data is provided by Visible Measures, an independent third-party measurement firm for internet video publishers, advertisers, and viral marketers. A joint project with Visible Measures and Variety, this chart of the top 10 online film trailers shows the week’s top-performing online video trailers with a focus on films that are within 10 weeks of general release. For more about how to interpret these results as well as additional background on the data collection methodology, please visit Visible Measures.